the DaVinci code was DaAwesome
yes we all know that gays and migrants are the root of all evil. its a difficult to escape 'fact' communicated daily by the media, congress and, according to his good friends jerry falwell and pat robertson, god himself. however, long, long ago there was another root of all evil:

christians.

damn those christians. damn them all to hell. it turns out that about 16 or 17 hundred years ago some christians created a fabric of lies in order to ensure the uninterrupted eminence of contemporary potentates. the result of these early christians' actions has been a legacy of holy wars between those in the 'true' or 'rational' religious organizations and countless groups of infidels, most notably women. More importantly, however, another negative result of those wicked, wicked christians has been that much of world history has been lost forever (well to almost everyone at least).

thank you da vinci code for giving me yet another reason to resent christians™. sure dan brown's book and ron howard's movie are self professed fiction. and i am a self professed intelligent person who more or less understands the difference between what is real and what is contrived. but i find myself increasingly believing in at least parts of this story. on one hand i think i am just responding to a week of history channel code-related specials. and on the other hand i think the story telling in these texts is just really compelling. but really i think i just WANT to believe in this story because it would provide validation to a lot of people. and also it's just fucking cool.

it is hard for me to recommend this movie to people who haven't read the book, but at least i can continue to impress the necessity that you all have to read it. honestly i haven't enjoyed reading a book this much in a while. and john, who isn't a really big reader, devoured the whole thing in like two days. sure it isn't great writing, but at the very least it is great story telling.

but if you have read the book, you definitely should go watch the film. I would argue that the two texts are in some ways separate, but they are at least great supplements of one another. I mean, I really enjoyed each separately, but, at the same time, watching this movie actually made me like the book even more. Ron Howard did a good job of extracting the really visual parts of the novel and illuminating them on the screen while he deemphasized the more literary parts of the story that brown really focuses on, namely symbology. The result is that seeing a lot of the art and images discussed in the book made me better appreciate the textual descriptions, but reading the novel itself still gives the film's viewer a greater appreciation of the nuances of the quest itself.

i know the movie has gotten some bad reviews, but i honestly don't understand them at all. most people have criticized the movie for being boring, but the last thing i would describe this movie as is boring. i mean, i think the same critics that think the code is dull will probably think the third fast and the furious movie is full of excitement. i was pretty much glued to the screen from beginning to end and couldn't point out a single boring stretch.

the only problem i had with the movie, which is a surprisingly small one, was the lead, tom hanks. i can't imagine why they cast him in this role. it is almost ridiculous. first of all, he couldn't have made his character langdon less interesting. he pretty much walks around in a fog through the whole movie. and i doubt anyone really buys him as a famous and well respected symbologist. he seems goofy and kinda stupid. but basically it isn't too hard to just ignore him. i mean paul bettany, audrey tatou, ian mckellan and jean reno are all so captivating that you can just not pay attention to tom hanks and enjoy the rest of the movie.

so if you haven't read the book go read it. if you have read the book go see the movie. don't listen to the critics. i have a feeling they are probably all christians anyway. evil, evil christians.  ¶ 5/21/2006 12:23:00 AM